Beauty is Only Skin Deep
by Hutch-is-gorgeous
Summary: I wrote this fanfic story because of something and extra horrific that could in real life happen to me. It could happen to everyone. I use Hutch as it happening to in this fanfic story, but I also wrote this as a tribute to those who (in real life) it, unfortunately, did have happen to them.
1. Chapter 1

Beta read by Sparkle7311 and Linda Hodder.

Major hurt/comfort and angst Hutch.

Tissue warning?

Some religious references and not meant to offend anyone.

I wrote this fanfic story because of something and extra horrific that could in real life happen to me. It could happen to everyone.

I use Hutch as it happening to in this fanfic story, but I also wrote this as a tribute to those who (in real life) it, unfortunately, did have happen to them.

Special thanks to the lady who wrote her true story of it happening to her and I found her story on the web in the early 2000s. I don't know how come she wrote it- out of bravery, with needing to release some of her trauma with writing it or both. But without having come across her true story on the web (I can't find the link to it now) this fanfic story would not have been made possible.

Additionally, although David Soul's handsomeness and his singing talent, (last recording 2009 "Bakit Na Lang Na Kong") as well as his acting skills, and what a talking voice he still has at 75 years old, as I've been listening to him and Hugh Burns on Boogaloo Radio!- I'd be lying if I said David didn't make me swoon and big time!

On the other hand, though David's not a perfect man from what I can tell he's mainly humble, honest, generous, kind, vulnerable and caring, and is concerned about animals and people. If it wasn't for that I would've long ago have lost interest in him. Please take that into consideration when reading this dark story and finding out what happens to Hutch.

Note also please: I made a lot of changes to this story. It was originally on the Starsky and Hutch fanfic website The Bay City Library.

A grade mark like you get on a test in school is very much appreciated. However, if you have the time word comments are welcome too! Thank you!

**Beauty is Only Skin Deep**

**Chapter One **

**Hutch POV**

I've been told that when I came out of the womb, the blood and amniotic fluid still needing to be washed off, even then it was obvious that I was one of the 'beautiful people' of the world.

For several years, in physical appearances, I was one of these people.

Then one night when Starsky and I were in our late 30s, something horrible, so 'immensely' horrible, happened to me that changed things so drastically! Instead of people taking notice of how good-looking I am they take notice of how extremely hideous looking I am.

Not to say that Starsky hadn't kept his Paul Muni refined good-looks with the streetwise good looks of Humphrey Bogart, because he did-

Yet, something so awful had happened to me. All kinds of doctors and nurses, and other people who work in the medical field say that what happened to me and had also happened to so many other people in the world-

They say, "It is the worse pain and suffering that the human body can endure!" I can vouch for that because I have endured.

I have endured, and I have survived.

Still, there are times when my depression so heavily drags me down; instead of doing something that is productive, I just lay there, a prisoner in my own bed.

And without moving an inch of my body, I stare at one of my bedroom's four walls.

Cheerfully painted as they all are, yet I gloomily wonder!

Desperate for an answer as to 'Why' I was the one something chose 'me' to strike and it did to so many other people in the world. And it is one of the main causes of people dying.

However, Starsky gets my butt and the rest of my body out of bed anyhow. After all, it is Starsky I have to continue to walk my life's journey with.

Because without him I wouldn't be able to continue to endure this terrible pain and suffering. To continue to survive…To continue to be able to keep on living!


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

When I was still capable of being a law enforcement officer, I have been shot.

That hurts and hurts a whole lot! A bullet, even one, plowing into your skin and muscles and into the bone and whatever else!- then the intense pain you feel as the bullet lies there inside your body, is something no cop ever wants to experience!

Like when it was close to Thanksgiving in 1978, and inside my car Starsky was using an _Examiner_ rag mag and me to test his ESP skills. A bit later on we responded to a call, and that is when a black female shot me inside a house she was robbing with a black male. I chose not to shoot her even though I had the chance to shoot her first, because she was just a teen. Just a teen. And so was the black male.

And I could've died then but didn't. I pulled through because of Starsky- even though he was partnered with the pretty Joan Meredith, and even though the bullet from the gun the teen girl had shot me with lodged itself a mere six inches from my heart.

The doctor took it out and stitched up the wound so that the scar is barely noticeable. Unlike the many scars I have from being burned so badly that even plastic surgery can't take care of.

That's right. Me. 'Hutch.' Severely burned.

Fire doesn't choose its victim depending on whether someone is considered by the majority of the human population as being physically beautiful. Or considered as being ugly. Fire does not have a preference on whom it chooses to strike.

####

Then there was the time, later on in the same year I was shot, when having botulism isn't a party either.

I was exhausted! Past beat! And if that wasn't bad enough, even though Pardee was in police custody, I was, on top of everything else-dizzy! Was seeing double of everything! Had difficulty swallowing and problems talking, as well as had facial weakness on both sides of my face. Nausea, vomiting and abdominal cramps! Oh, Wow! Then there was the sweating which had increased that I had to deal with, and all that sweating would've done me in if not for Starsky bathing me with cool water and a washcloth.

And in Memorial Hospital, Starsky and I were even more alarmed when this one physician told us just how close my whole body was to being paralyzed!

The look on Starsky's face, too, telling me that a different doctor had already told him that one of the symptoms of botulism was the person who had it could very well end up paralyzed.

Due to botulism, I spent twelve whole nights and days in Memorial Hospital, and with a breathing tube stuck down my throat, and other medical things done to me. But once I was well, I was well. No symptoms of botulism remained.

Though not botulism, or anything like it, that wasn't so with spending a whole lot of nights and days in the hospital from being severely burned.

#####

As for the time I, as well as some other people including Richie Yeager, were in Memorial Hospital in Bay City, and deathly ill from the plague, we were eventually given a shot in the thigh.

I don't know about those other people, but the shot they gave me hurt, and combined with the pain caused by the plague, I was not in a good mood, to say the least.

And I recall someone…probably a nurse in a gown and a mask telling me, "Sorry about that shot hurting, Hutch. But it will keep you alive."

At least doctor Judith Kauffman (she and I had become smitten with each other before it was found out I had the plague) and the male Dr. Meredith- both from the Center for Disease Control in Alabama-had been able to make whatever was in that shot from the prince of all hit men Thomas Callendar's blood. -

Callendar was the walking cure for the plague. You see… Richie's mom had a boarding house out in the sticks of Bay City. It was there that before Richie fell ill and with no professional medical help that Richie and his mom took care of the sick Callendar. But it was Callendar's immune system that made the antibodies needed for him to keep from dying from the plague.

#######

My days and nights spent in Memorial Hospital with the plague even combined with the time I spent in there with botulism, had been short compared to how I felt destined to be a permanent resident in West Hills Hospital, and all because of being burned so badly!

West Hills-the best hospital in southern California for those who are burned.

And like I already mentioned, being severely burned is the tremendously horrible thing that happened to me when I was in my late thirties that would forever change my life! Starsky's too! And other people's life's who I was close to.

That's right, me - Ken Hutchinson - severely burned!

Doesn't matter at all if prior to that the majority of people thought I was so handsome. So beautiful. Because (again) fire doesn't have a preference on whom it chooses to strike.

######

Speaking of life's frightful moments, this nurse- Diana Harmon- was jealous if I paid any attention at all to another woman.

Because Diana couldn't have me all to herself, she tried to murder me, slicing my arm open with a knife…a big one… while I was taking a shower inside my Venice Place apartment I had at that time.

Getting out of the shower and winding my bathrobe tightly around my arm and using it as a makeshift tourniquet, I still lost quite a lot of blood.

Was in a lot of pain, and felt like I might faint, and by then I was in the hallway outside my apartment door. Then Starsky arrived and attended to my needs and the paramedics showed up. But Starsky didn't stop taking care of me though, even helping the hospital's medical staff take care of me, and just like he always does when I'm in there sick or hurt.

###

Then there was that slimeball who wore a cheap toupee, Vic Humphries.

With his lawyer's assistance, he hired this mean guy- Roy Slater- to kill me. Slater had no quibbles at all ramming the dump truck he was driving into the driver's side of my Ford Galaxie 500 and off the road and into a canyon.

The car rolled over several times and combined with being thrown out of it, I had lots of nasty lumps and bruises. A bloody gash on my forehead. But a whole lot worse was my left leg was trapped underneath the heavy metal of my overturned car.

After Starsky arrived, I overheard some of those paramedics who afterwards showed up talking about how my leg might have to be amputated!

It still causes me to sometimes have nightmares that it might have needed to be amputated, and I cry out to Starsky. Yet even those nightmares don't make me so anxious I feel like I'm being suffocated.

But…

As for this forever life-changing incident of being burned I'm talking about, the haunting memories from when I first caught on fire…

The memories that don't fade of all the other horrible stuff I've been through because of catching on fire—memories so horrific that sometimes it is very difficult to finish a sentence about what catching on fire can do...

That at times, even a firefighter, or someone who works in a burn unit finds it hard to discuss what kind of agony and suffering a burned person goes through- do cause me to have those tormenting nightmares and make me feel like I am being suffocated.

Even with Starsky there in the bed with me, lying beside me with his arms wrapped tightly around me, and feeling the warmth of them along with hearing the musical rhythmic beat of his heart as the side of my head lies there on his chest.

A chest that normally I would prefer as smooth as silk, and even though it's not as hairy as an ape's, it is still hairy and tickles my ear.

Anyhow, I still pray that one day those suffocating nightmares of catching on fire do stop.

Pray one day they will stop just like the panic attacks did that came about because of that mobster Ben Forest and his thugs Monk, Coney, and Walsh.

How I was kidnapped, had the living daylights beaten out of me, then was strung out on heroin ('Poppy Seed Paradise' I sometimes like to call it, and so does Starsky)-until the heroin was unmercifully withheld from me, and the pain of withdrawal so bad I coughed up where Jeanie Walden was!

Then I was given another shot of the highly addictive drug…

Then later, inside Huggy Bear's Bar and Grill in an upstairs room used as a crash pad, with Starsky and Hug making me go cold turkey off the heroin!

I sincerely thought the torturous pain and suffering was going to be the worse I would ever experience.

It was a piece of cake in comparison to catching on fire! And, the withdrawal only lasted 48 hours.

Not so with catching on fire as the excruciating pain and anguish and suffering goes on and on and on and on and on and on….


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Starsky and I had gone to an indoor ice hockey game on the east side of Bay City.

We had great front row seats. Sometimes the game got going so fierce one of the players extra aggressively slammed the blade of the hockey stick into the puck and hurled the puck into the air!

If the puck was coming in our direction, Starsk and I ducked to keep from being accidentally hit with the puck, just in case it flew over the plexiglass wall we sat behind.

What made the game even more exciting was that I was rooting for one team. Starsk the other one.

The game was so thrilling that Starsky hadn't noticed he was drinking my soda. Neither had I, until it was too late, and I didn't have anymore.

The score tied, Starsky handed me his cup of Coke. Said I could drink some, but not the whole thing.

Thankfully, that night I wasn't drinking anything with alcohol.

As high as my medical bills from catching on fire have been and continue to be, the car insurance companies who are paying for my bills would long ago have found a way to weasel out of not paying them.

Also, my parents have money that they are using to pay as much as my medical bills as they can without going bankrupt, and Starsky and some other people have chipped in paying my bills. Including the country singer Sue Ann Grainger and also Joe Haymes, the owner of this one football team The Turbos. Starsky and I had rescued his daughter when she was kidnapped.

###

As for why neither Starsky nor I were drinking any alcoholic beverages that night…

After the ice hockey game, Starsky and I had to go to the Bay City Metropolitan Division police headquarters. And with Harold C. Dobey still our captain, he'd already informed Starsk and me he didn't want us to have even 'one' drink with alcohol in it!

Afraid it might cloud our thinking skills and interfere with us being able to finally solve this one homicide cold case we'd been working on.

Of course, the way the ice hockey game was going, Starsky and I weren't feeling sober just drinking soda pop! But knew we would have our heads on straight shortly after the game.

But if I had the chance to do things over, I would have skipped out altogether going to that game!

As no one, not even Starsky, will ever 100% know what it is like to catch on fire. Not unless, God forbid, one day he has to walk in my shoes and severely catch on fire too, because then and only then, will he 100 percent know what it's like.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

And another thing, it was an extremely terrible thing to have happened that those few years ago and the same year I had been shot by that teen girl and the same year I got botulism- that Starsky was shot several times in the Bay City Metropolitan Division's police headquarter's garage, and by some goon's of James Gunther.

Starsk almost died, but the truth of the matter is that and by God not providing a miracle, but it was still God's providence, that Starsky didn't die.

It had to be God's foresight, too, that within a short time of Starsky being shot, but while he was in bed, and I was in the bed with him providing him company- with Huggy in the room standing beside us-that we were feasting on a scrumptious dinner Huggy had prepared! Then the fire sprinkler went off, with Starsky, Huggy, and me laughing our heads off about it! God's foresight too that Starsky didn't catch a cold or got pneumonia.

The truth of the matter is that it had to be God's wisdom to make it so that when Starsky was well enough to have it done, that a plastic surgeon was able to make it so that those scars from being shot by James Gunther's men are usually hardly noticeable.

The truth of the matter is that though I don't know why God allows some good things to happen to people and some bad things-

Other things I can say about fire is that there are times I can't stand to be anywhere around it.

Whether or not we're in Starsky's upstairs living quarters (or downstairs in mine of the split-level house we now have to share because of me catching on fire) is that every candle, even the ones that are extra nicely scented, have to stay unlit.

Starsky's gas stove stays turned off. My electric one downstairs in my living quarters too stays off, because when it's on, the bright orange-red that glows from the heating coils shows it (and just as well as a gas stove that has been turned on) can burn me again, though I'd already been severely burned and had to spend all that time in the hospital and so on.

###

Then, there are other… other possibilities… of how I can be burned again.

Those other possibilities and are seemingly…Endless!

Whether real possibilities or imagined, during…during..during.. during the times I'm paranoid I'm going to catch on fire all over again!-

It's ridiculous, I know, that during those times I'm paranoid that I'm going to catch on fire all over again, that Starsk can't put on 'his' nice radio/record player anything that mentions fire and it doesn't matter how much he loves the song, it doesn't get played.

And during the times I'm paranoid I'm going to catch on fire all over again, my stomach is not tied up in any more knots than it already is, because Starsky hasn't put me under any more stress by asking me to eat something. Even if it's just one small banana, and that's all.

#####

My face and so many other parts of my body horribly scarred for life, and the truth is that sometimes the pain and the suffering of catching on fire gets so bad, it is hard to keep faith in God, when the Devil makes me sometimes want to kill myself!

#####

More than one finger on both hands having had the nail bed so burned, the nails are no longer, and the nail beds will never be able to give birth to new ones-

Too many fingers having arthritis to where I can do some simple tasks like cook some soup on my stove when I'm not paranoid I'm going to catch on fire all over again. Also, I can write with a pen or pencil, but can't tie my own shoelaces, or button or unbutton my own shirt.

Anyway, I was having one of my times when I was being vain about what I look like to other people, that I didn't want to be seen out in public. Nevertheless, Starsky had encouraged me to go ahead and walk with him to (the not too far away from our place) flea market- But I was walking so close behind him, we may as well be one skin.

I turned my head to the right and spotted a doll on the sidewalk, and it was obvious its 'mommy' was a little girl.

I then looked at the screen door of a shop that sold seashells, I saw inside of that shop the little girl that the doll obviously belonged to. She was about eight years old and tugging on a teenage boy's shirtsleeve to get him to move closer to the screen door.

I stopped walking, letting Starsk move at least seven feet in front of me instead of clinging to him like Saran Wrap.

I picked up the doll, and the little girl she screamed to the teen boy, "Bobby! That ugly, ugly, ugly man has my dolly!"

Devastated that she'd confirmed just how ugly I was, I stood shell-shocked! Shell-Shocked and flabbergasted. Because it was such a sudden alarming experience to have an innocent and sweet little girl confirming just how ugly I was!

Bobby, also obviously an innocent and sweet teenager, and who had to be her brother, came dashing out of the store, yanking the doll out of my (tightly clutched as much as possible) arthritic hand!

Starsky just stood there and did nothing. Totally beside himself about what to do about the situation and all of us were in. Including the owner of the shop with the girl still inside with him, and along with some other patrons who were witnessing everything going on.

###

Something then must've given Starsky a swift kick in the butt. Because Starsky backed down the sidewalk and closer to me and told the girl and the boy and everyone else within hearing distance, "Have a great day!" And he meant every word that he said!

Then, without apologizing to anyone about what I look like, he put his bent left elbow casually on top of my right shoulder. And the elbow stayed put while we walked and in relaxed companionship back to our house, and inside it spent some enjoyable times doin' nothing but sitting there and reading some books we'd gotten from a great library.

However, after we were done reading the books it didn't take long that Satan had me once again distressed that the girl had screamed how ugly I was, and distressed too about her brother yanking the doll out of my hand. Because of that it ended up taking Starsky a good hour to get me to stop shaking. And with all that other stuff that had happened back at the seashell store, Starsky and I never did make it to the flea market.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

When my hands were still perfectly structured and able to gracefully play the guitar and a piano, and there hadn't yet been a head surgeon at West Hills Hospital saying my hands were the worst burned he'd seen in a long time, I was quite capable of picking up Starsky's cup of Coke and taking a drink out of it, and without tipping it over.

That was unless something happened at the ice hockey game and during intermission.

It had.

Something caused the inside of my nose to start tickling and I sneezed so hard that I completely tipped over the cup I'd just picked up.- Spilling the Coke on top of Starsky's brand spanking new Adidas tennis shoes he was wearing! Although, it was obvious he wasn't upset with me at all about it.

He was too busy finding hilarious entertainment at my expense. Knowing by looking at my red face that I was red with embarrassment and 'all over' from having spilled the drink on top of his brand spanking new tennies.

And there was one thing, and only one thing, I could think to say to him.

Said to Starsk, "Oh go find yourself some wood sticks and shove them through your ears!"

And the way he'd said, "Gladly!"-

If I didn't know any better, I'd swear he really was going to go find himself some wood sticks and shove them through his ears!

He'd left to go use the john, when he came back and sat back down, I told him, "We really did need to quit putting so much importance in what a female looked like, because lately we were guilty of not asking any of the less attractive gals out on a date for even a cup of coffee."

Starsky agreed with me that we needed to quit putting so much importance on what a female looked like, right after that, we turned around in our seats.

Our eyes drawn like magnets to this female standing up by her seat in a different seat section of the ice hockey auditorium.

She wasn't pretty. Not at all. Her face was so plain-Jane. Had long and stringy and mousy brown hair. A chest flatter than pancakes. Her butt - there was one? But in spite of it all, it was easy to tell she had a wonderful personality!

My curly-headed and brunet friend Starsky then dug a 'betting' coin out of one of the pockets of his blue jeans, "Tails you get to go talk to her! Heads I do!" he shouted with enthusiasm of thinking he was going to win the coin toss.

#######

Sulking in my seat, not liking that I had in fact had lost the coin toss, out of these big speakers anchored to the hockey arena's brick walls- all of us in the auditorium heard this booming voice.

"Your attention, please! I'm Stan the Man and whoever has seat number 10 in Section 1 has won tonight's ice hockey game prizes!"

In other words, the seat Stan the Man had called was mine!

Honest! The prizes were for me, and I was excited as a little kid on Christmas, Easter, and the 4th of July!

Contrary to popular belief, Starsky isn't the only kid in our partnership and I love to win prizes too!

But upon winning, I do have a more reserved way of showing it.

Sure, if I win something I can feel and hear my heart beat faster, but instead of hootin' and hollerin' out loud like Starsky does, the grin on my face turns into this big toothy smile. Even more so when Starsky's right there to rub it in that I've won!

Listening to Stan boom over the speakers to go to the main office to collect the prizes, as I climbed the stairs, I purposely found a way to move super close to Starsk.

For some reason, it really ticked me off that he and his new girl were so engrossed in each other, my gloating toothy smile went entirely unnoticed.

Working my anger off by climbing several more stairs and walking down some long hallways, I was huffin' and puffin' and almost out of breath by the time I reached the main office.

Had to show this short guy with the name Ralph my ticket stub for proof it had on it seat number 10 and what section of the auditorium my seat was in. Also, my driver's license. A bank check with not only my name and address on it, but also my phone number. Some other things. And thinking he was going to want to draw my blood to get my blood type before he was done and knowing I was missing the game that had re-started, winning that night's prizes had become undesirable.

But things changed. By the time a glitch in Ralph's Apple desktop computer's printer was fixed, and I signed the necessary paperwork, I received two tickets for front row seats to another hockey game. Also, a gift coupon for two free meals at a nice Italian restaurant down the street from the hockey arena.

Starsk would enjoy going to the restaurant with me and the game immediately afterward, but he wouldn't be going to either one of them with me. I was getting myself a lady knowing at the time I had the very handsome face and lean muscular body to easily do it.

And with my date, I would be wearing an extremely nice, waist length, and with the smell of fresh leather black sports coat and that I'd also won at the game that night!

####

So, there I was in the men's restroom with my new coat, trying it on, and not questioning at all how Ralph knew it was going to be a perfect fit.

Then listening to someone say over the speakers in the restroom which ice hockey team had won, I left to go get my partner.

We still needed to get to Metro, but I couldn't find him anywhere!

That was too bad because Dobey, out of the kindness of his heart, had changed our work schedules so where we were able to go to the game before going to Metro and working again on that homicide cold case.

Though it was Starsky's fault we were going to be late, I called Cap to apologize for the both of us.

"Apology accepted but you two best be here in thirty minutes or else it's your hides!" He was bellowing it so loudly I had to hold the payphone's handset a good distance away from my ear!

So, I was back to trying to find out where Starsky 'Curly' had gone to.

If he'd just stayed put sitting right next to plain-Jane (I didn't know what her real name was) there wouldn't have been any problem at all locating him. What I hadn't known was that even though she and Starsky found each other fascinating, they had found some conflicts in interests they couldn't work around to get a serious relationship started.

But they weren't in any way enemies because of it, and he'd walked her to her car. One parked on the other side of the ice hockey arena than my rental car.

Starsky's Torino and my Ford Galaxie were at Merle the Earl's waiting to get an oil change, a tune-up and some other maintenance done on them-

With Starsky missing and knowing Dobey was expecting the impossible wanting us both in on time, and knowing it wasn't going to happen-

Also knowing it would be safer for me to walk into a cage of big, and ferocious, and hungry alligators and someone lock the cage door securely behind me than to face Dobey, I left for work anyway. And right before then, I quickly took off my new coat putting it in the box it had come in, putting it inside my rental car, planning on taking the coat the next day to get the leather treated with something to keep it from cracking.

As for Starsky finding a way into work, that was his own problem and besides that, taxicabs frequented the area.

In the meanwhile, I was in the rental and on a two-way street about six blocks from the ice hockey arena. Sitting there at my stop sign along with a car coming from the opposite direction, we waited for a white rabbit to safely cross the intersection before either of us drove forward.

It was like this bunny knew for a fact we would wait for it to do so.

Fortunate for the rabbit!

Then it happened.

Just as I was about to drive forward BAM!

This guy, too busy taking hits off his marijuana joint, had rammed the front of his jeep into the back of my rental car!

Thankfully, I hadn't heard any of my bones breaking, and I had no internal injuries that I could tell of, but my forehead had bounced off the steering wheel.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

So, there I continued to sit - stunned- in what still could be my tomb.

The pothead backed up, drove forward, and slammed the front of his jeep again into the back of my rental car and careened it right into the path of an oncoming Fiat station wagon.

Then there was the screeching of tires with the driver of the Fiat trying to stop their car in time to not hit my rental car, but failing to do so, BAM again!

And it was that impact that set my rental ablaze.

The car was burning. The seats. I couldn't see out the windows, they were so pitch black. And the heat and the smell of burning rubber were awful! Then there was something else that I smelled!

It was flesh, and it was 'mine' that the angry flames were burning, and I knew it was real. It wasn't something I was imagining and caused by the big knot on my forehead.

I screamed. No words. Just screams, trying desperately to figure out a way to get out of the inferno rental car.

Thought I was going to die and leave Starsky without not only a working partner but also a best friend.

Then someone managed to pry open my driver's door. I heard that person holler, "I'm Joe!"

I flew out of the car and covered my face the best I could with my right arm.

Next, I stopped, dropped and rolled like this firefighter on TV instructs you to do if you catch on fire.

But as I rolled the flames weren't stopping, only increasing. You see, my rental's fuel tank had ruptured, and I was rolling in the gasoline, and even a part of the road I was on was in flames.

###

**Starsky POV**

It was then that a taxi and with me in it came down this one street.

Screaming at the driver to stop the cab, I hurriedly jumped out.

**Hutch POV**

Starsky yelled at me to stand up. Yelled at the cab driver to call for help. Cursed and yelled at me to stand up so I did. But I just stood there. I was so scared stiff that's all I could do.

Joe had frozen on what his next step of action should be. He blankly stared at me as I stood there, but then he sprang into action. Just before Starsky reached me, Joe took his coat, deciding it was better to tackle me into the grass with it than to leave me just standing there.

The flames on my clothing and body having been totally put out, Starsky and Joe lifted me, taking me away from the fiery street - the fiery rental car.

Placed on my back in someone's front yard and looking heavenward, I was 'monk' silent. Looking heavenward but I may as well be looking down and into Lucifer's pit; all I could see in my mind was the burning street and the rental car still on fire. Not Starsk and Joe. All I could hear were these strange popping and crackling and hissing sounds going on. Not them talking. All I could smell were the sickening fumes. I felt deathly ill as I laid there, not moving an inch of my body.

And then in my mind, I replayed over and over and over again the screeching of the Fiat's tires right before the vehicle hit me and inside my rental car.

I replayed in my mind the sound of the crunching metal of my rental when the Fiat crashed into it. It really was amazing I'd escaped from the car at all!

###


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

Early November and even in southern California the night air can get very cold, and I continued to lie there in the grass with over half of my body burned.

Then, suddenly, I was able to see Starsky again- was glad to be alive- but was certain death was coming to claim me at any moment.

My hands - Before I died, I wanted to be able to see them reach up to Starsky and then touch his face.

Use my hands not to say "Goodbye," but to say along with words, "Man, Starsk, how I love you so very, very, much!"

###

It was so dark outside, either way, as my hands came up, I was able to see that they looked like a biscuit that had been left in the oven way too long with how charred black they were. At the same time, the skin like it was raw dough with it rolling down to right past my wrists.

With my hands moved only half-way off the ground, Starsky instructed me to not bring them up anymore. I knew he didn't want me to bring them up anymore but either way, they couldn't stay in limbo. So, as I brought them back down to the grass, the skin fell off and like the ashes off the end of a lit cigarette would.

Not believing I was seeing this, I totally surrendered expressing in any way at all that I loved him. I wouldn't have been able to. My face felt like a stretched rubber band. I could barely move my mouth. In terror, panic, and shock, I wondered if my hands were so dreadful, what in the world did my face look like? Though I couldn't tell Starsk that I loved him, I heard myself in a hoarse whisper say, "Help."

Then, I was aware of more voices. Spectator's voices from area businesses and residential homes, and I was the number one theater movie.

Dear God! Why couldn't being burned be all just a movie!?….

A totally fictional movie!

Tons of people watching what was going on and two people-Starsky and Joe against tons…There was no way at all possible that Starsky and Joe yelling at them to go away could cause them to do that!

Then it was like a circus going on and I was the main freak show, I was being asked questions like, "Hey crispy man do you hurt?"

"How badly do you hurt?"

Did I look like I wasn't hurting and in severe pain!?

No offense to people, but sometimes they can be so cruel and so stupid!

And then my face was swelling by the minute.

I was still in shock.

I was cold. My body was trembling so much I couldn't keep any of it still. And even with Starsky's thick and insulated jacket having been put over me, did nothing to warm me.

The fire trucks, paramedics, and the ambulance finally arrived, and I started crying. Wondering where in the world they'd been all along. Though realistically it hadn't taken very long at all for their arrival, I thought they'd taken forever.

The paramedics' decision was to pick me up again and place me further away from the burning car and street, once there and lying on the sidewalk, one of them ordered Starsky to move away from me so they could do their job.

Though exhausted, my face still feeling like it was stretched like a rubber band, and a sore throat to boot, I managed to scream, "No!- There was no way at all someone was going to 'make' Starsky go away from me!"

"Hutchinson! Knock it off!" A paramedic I'd seen somewhere else before harshly chastised me.

Starsky grabbed a hold of his coat collar, "Don't you ever talk like that to him again!" Starsk yelled, then ran quickly away from me.

He was standing only about six feet from me and I took comfort in that. Then, my emotions got the best of me and suddenly I'd never felt so abandoned by him before, and shivered harder because of it.

Then one of the paramedics removed Starsky's jacket that had been placed over me.

Starsky, Joe, and the uniformed police officers who'd shown up again tried to get the gawking crowd of people to mind their own business.

To go someplace else.

But with me continuing to be the main attraction of the evening except for a few people leaving, the majority stayed put right where they were at.

Though the paramedics flocked around me, the unsympathetic gapers could still see what was going on through the gaps.

####

It was even darker outside, spotlights were turned on. Then I closed my swollen eyelids as tightly as they possibly could go, but when I re-opened them, I could still see the hordes of people with a million eyes on me as a paramedic sheared open my black slacks.

In the rush to start my examination my underwear was cut off and my genitals…my 'privates' fully exposed… It was humiliating for all those strangers to be looking at them.

Not just the paramedics seeing them, but the part of the crowd that had been able to get up that close to me and totally ignoring Starsky's, Joe's, and the uniformed police officers' continued pleas to go away.

###

My new waist-length leather coat and the box it was in burned up in the rental car, the next thing some paramedics cut off me was a turquoise blue pull-over shirt with long sleeves.

I must have blanked out what happened next, but shortly after that saw a paramedic removing my shoes and socks.

"Cool man! So very cool!" I heard some people say, but it was such the opposite for me with lying there.

A paramedic placed a white sheet over me; when someone in the crowd pointed out just how stark naked I still was! I went past feeling humiliated about it to feeling degraded and down to the bottom dregs of human society.

Then, there was Starsky growling at the horde of people to just leave me alone! And still being entirely ignored… trying to keep it together, while I was attempting to do the same, while an I.V. was started.

Sterile gauze bandages were then taken and wrapped around my hands until it looked like I had on mittens.

"Get him going now!" a paramedic barked out the order and briskly I was put on a stretcher and rushed into the ambulance.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

The ride to the hospital was something else. Sure, I'd been in an ambulance before as a patient, but never a burned one.

It was moving too fast.

Even with strong nylon belts strapping me onto the stretcher it felt like I was going to be hurled off it anytime now, as the ambulance made this turn and that.

When it hit some bumps in the road, I cried out in pain.

"Can't you be more careful!?" Starsky hollered at the driver.

"Doin' the best I can but got to get him to West Hills Hospital!"

And then I could feel the ambulance going faster and faster and faster and it was flipping me out!

Remember, I'd just been involved in an automobile crash and I was fearing another one.

And the ambulance wasn't just carrying me, but Starsky as precious cargo.

As the ambulance's siren piercingly wailed through the night air, I felt it was expressing my fear that he, too, would become a victim of a tremendously horrible vehicle accident!

Then this pain hit and even more terrible than the previous ones and I screamed out in sheer agony.

And as the driver made more of those too fast turns around the street corners, the male EMT with Starsk and me in the back of the ambulance was giving my vital signs to the hospital.

After giving them, he said I had 2nd and 3rd - degree burns on my face, hands, arms, stomach, back, and legs.

"My legs? My legs?" - I gasped - "Starsky?" and he kept saying, "Shh, Hutch. Everything's going to be fine," as I kept asking about my legs.

They were about the only thing on my body that wasn't hurting. I should be glad and not in a panic, but in some ways not knowing they also were burned was as painful as knowing that they were.

"My legs? Starsk, is he sure?" As the driver pulled up to the hospital, Starsky couldn't take it anymore. "Hutch, he's sure." Because he looked like he was going to pull all his hair out if I asked him again about my legs, I shut my mouth.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

I was rushed into the hospital and with Starsky right there walking as fast as the wheels on the stretcher I was lying on were rolling.

Just as we reached the doors of the trauma emergency room he was quickly told by a nurse, "I'm sorry but you can't come in with him."

I let loose with a terrified gasp...

If Starsky wasn't coming, then 'I' wasn't going! But I was proved wrong as I was hurried into the emergency room, the doors closing behind me.

I expected Starsky to sneak in the room at any moment now. When he didn't, I once again felt abandoned by him. Still, as I laid on the exam and treatment table and underneath the bright fluorescent lights which weren't doing a thing to help my eyes feel any better, it slowly sank in - realistically - he couldn't be with me 24/7 and it was time to be a big man - instead of a big baby.

Though, continuing to lie underneath the scrutinizing fluorescent lights, I found myself not feeling like a big man at all. Figuring that if I was going to at least 'look' like one to the people working on me (and believe me there were plenty!) I figured the best way to do it was to start asking them questions.

Furthermore, just as long as I got some answers about what they were doing to me, I felt like the ER would be less scary. So, even in the sad condition I was in... given something strong for pain... making me drowsy and my speech slurred…um….oh yeah…

As I was saying, I started asking them questions, (lots of them), being just as curious (if not more), than those hordes of gawkers back at the accident scene. But being as it was 'my' body and 'not' theirs I was asking questions about, I felt completely justified in doing so.

But even with my curiosity being what it was, no one had the time to answer any of my questions. There went my prayers unanswered in making the ER less frightening!

Though with being drugged up there wasn't anything I could do about getting off the table and going to find Starsky, so I kept quiet. Letting the medical personnel get on with their business of treating me.

Next, my hands were unwrapped. Right after they were, an instrument was picked up that looked like a pair of pliers. A great portion of the skin that remained on my hands was pulled off with it as that skin had to go - it was so damaged there was no way it could begin to heal itself. As it was pulled off, I felt like I could climb the walls!

Then, it was a good thing at one point I couldn't feel any pain at all or else I would've gone totally insane! Was horrid enough watching blood ooze out of my hands and run down my arms.

Was also shocking to see a gold and silver ring engraved with alphabetical letters that had a very special meaning Dad and Mom had given me as a Christmas present one year cut off. Their only child and we have a wonderful relationship, the thing of it is, when you're burned, YOU'RE BURNED!

And the doctors and nurses don't care what they need to cut off! Having said that, I was dressed in a hospital gown.

You know the kind:

The kind that has flimsy ties in the back, wouldn't win any fashion designer contests, and doesn't cover all of your butt. And whoever had been the designer of such ought to be shot, as it would be my wardrobe for the next several weeks.

####

I didn't have a mustache at the time, but my hair was at one of its longest lengths ever. Even so, it had a ways to go before it needed a haircut. Wrong again!

Okay, not all of it a Hispanic man had to cut off. When he started combing through what was left of my hair, lumps and clumps of it easily fell out.

Right after that, I had a shave around my hairline and ears. Wouldn't pay a penny for it though, with thinking he was going to slice open my skin with the sharpened razor blade.

"Surrytoputyouthroughsomuchtrouble," I slurred out.

#####

Too much to tell. Too much. Too much.

######

A cap was then put on my head to keep my wounded face free from live bacteria and other microorganisms. Sterile gauze was saturated in salt water and placed over my face. My hands were wrapped in the same type of gauze, along with my legs, confirming they were indeed burned. As this procedure took place, I could feel other areas of my body being covered with the gauze. Too many (way too many!) and then someone gently but firmly took a hold of my penis, cleaned the urinary opening, and inserted a catheter into it.

So nerve-wracking that was I decided the best way to prepare myself for whatever came next was to start telling morbid jokes.

Had just finished with the second one when Starsky surprisingly got to come in to see me.

Knew he was there and standing beside me without him saying so…

"Hey, Starsk!" I said in the most jovial voice I could muster and told him some morbid jokes with the fifth joke, "So, this is what it's like being a human sacrifice to a deity gone wrong, cuz I didn't burn up all the way!"

I laughed at that one, hoping he'd do the same and he did.

Nevertheless, the laughter was soon replaced with being in pain again, and I groaned ever so deeply.

Then had to gulp a few times to work up enough saliva to be able to talk some more, and told Starsk, "Man, this wooziness…this lightheadedness… combined with this fatigue is overtaking me and figuratively speaking, it's time for lights out buddy and for me to go 'nighty-night.'


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten **

Back at the rental car accident and after Hutch was rushed into the ambulance, a paramedic treated Joe for minor injuries. The same was being done by another paramedic to the driver of the Fiat. After hitting Hutch's rental car, he had quickly backed up far enough down the road to not get seriously injured.

Next, Joe and the driver of the Fiat gave their statements to the police along with their contact info in case the cops needed to talk to them again. Then they were free to go.

The jeep and its pothead driver Tyson had disappeared, but some cops found both Tyson and his jeep about nine blocks away.

He was hauled off to jail and his jeep towed off to the impound lot. Afterwards, one of the cops mentioned to their partner though it was illegal to smoke marijuana, he had no problem with someone doing it, just as long as it was done somewhere safe and done responsibly where no one would get hurt in a vehicle accident or get injured in some other way.

###

Inside the Bay City Metropolitan Division police headquarters, tired and wanting to go home, Captain Dobey was furious and the only excuse he would accept for Starsky and Hutch being late was if one of them came in and announced they were late because they'd been at the other one's funeral!

Then Starsky and Hutch's best snitch and great friend Huggy Bear called Dobey and told him about Hutch's car accident and their tardiness was entirely forgiven.

#####

**Starsky POV**

I was worried sick about Hutch!

Hutch... 'My' Hutch!

He was burned so severely it was breaking my heart in two. Not just in two. It was shattered into an unfathomable number of itsy-bitsy pieces!

While he was in the ER room and still being treated, Huggy Bear spotted me in the waiting room and gave me a bear hug.

"Hey, man. How's our brother doing?"

When I didn't answer him, "You'll see, everything will be okay!" Next patting my back in further encouragement that Hutch was going to make it and not die. That put me at enough peace so where I only looked like a half-crazed man when Dobey showed up.

####

After Dobey's arrival, there was a period of normalcy as to what usually went on in the waiting room when Hutch or I were severely hurt and in an ER exam and treatment room. The frantic pacing, and Dobey saying "Son, sit down." And sometimes we did, and sometimes we didn't, and sometimes we drank the cup of proffered coffee.

I'd chosen to sit, just as I swallowed the last of my coffee, Dobey looked at his watch. Looking at mine, I stared at the second hand going around a few times when Dobey matter-of-factly informed me, "You know Hutch's age combined with how badly he's burned means his chances of living are still very slim."

Technically, I knew he was right, but still! How dare him to have told me that! I shot out of my chair and punched him in the mouth! It was bleeding profusely, but he smiled at me. "That's the fighting spirit! Keep it up!"

Then Huggy, who thought he best not get in the middle of things, realized what was going on.

Dobey did have hope that Hutch would pull through but also knew Hutch had a long road of nothing but sweat and pain up ahead. If he was going to continue to live, I would have to keep up that fighting spirit!

###

However, I had no intention of hitting Dobey again. Then I thought about how if Hutch really was going to continue to live, a lot of times I would have to use on him something called 'tough-love' and force him to do things he didn't want to do.

Didn't mean I was looking forward to it though, and it put me back into a bad mood and I harshly growled at Huggy, "You! You still have your bar and grill 'The Pits' to go run! Get lost!"

"Sir! Yes, sir!" And then Huggy took off and disappeared out of sight.

Dobey-I didn't expect the big guy to let me grouchily boss him around forever when he smiled again, taking a hankie out of his plaid suit coat, dabbing his still bleeding mouth with it, when an Asian-lookin' female nurse rushed into the waiting room.

"Is there a Mr. Starsky here?"

I didn't delay in the least bit calling out, "I'm him!"

Asked if I was familiar with how to get out of all my dirty clothes and wash up to become sterile, then change into some scrubs, I told her I did. Right after that, I was shown a place where I could do it.

It didn't bother me at all she'd decided to follow me into the changing/washroom and stayed right there next to me, making 100 percent certain that I knew what I was doing. Satisfied that I'd done everything right, she didn't deny me exit out of the room, nor did she hesitate to let me into the ER room Hutch was in.

###

Though, when I walked in there, I saw Hutch with his gown hiked up to his upper chest and I was afraid to ask anyone what for. Then with all that wet gauze on him, his penis with a urine catheter in it, this cloudy pee with strands of mucous inside the collection plastic bag hooked to the side of his exam and treatment table, he looked even more horrific than the last time I'd seen him! Despite the medical personnel's best efforts to save my best friend, it sure looked like they were doing him more harm than good!

Then there was Hutch telling me morbid jokes.

When I was a U.S. Army soldier in the Vietnam War, I told those types of jokes while the world was threatening to be thrown completely off its axis.

It wasn't right... Hutch telling them.

Nothing to do with Hutch being burned was right! But if I could get through Nam by telling morbid jokes, it wasn't going to kill me just because the Blintz, as I sometimes affectionately called him, was telling them.

Also, if that's what he needed to do to find a shred of humor in what wasn't a humorous situation at all, then so be it, and I laughed with him after he'd told me the fifth morbid joke. Though when the pain hit him again it stopped us from doing any more laughing.

Then, when thankfully he did conk out from the lightheadedness and fatigue and started loudly snoring….and knowing 40,000 alarm clocks going off at the same time and in the room wouldn't arouse him…there was nothing more there that I could do. This time I didn't feel guilty about walking away from him. And besides that, I was feeling faint and weary myself and desperately needed some sleep in the waiting room until the ER's head physician had time to come talk to me.

The waiting room was where I still found Dobey, his mouth doing much better, I found a half-way comfortable place to sleep, and so did he, after he'd used the waiting room's courtesy phone to check up on Edith and their kids Cal and Rosie.

Eventually, the head physician came out saying Hutch was stable and had been moved to patient room 105. Also said to tell anyone who wanted to bring him any real flowers to make his room homier to forget it! They breed microorganisms and burn victims are highly susceptible to infection!

Next told me to tell everyone who wanted to come to visit Hutch to keep all their mirrors at home. He went on to explain that intentionally there weren't any mirrors in the burn unit, and one time a visitor allowed their burned friend to see themself in a make-up mirror. The look on the doc's face told Dobey and me how that burned person emotionally and physically and mentally reacted to seeing themself hadn't been pretty at all!

####

Dobey shifted in his seat in the hospital's waiting room looking tired and uncomfortable. Looking at his watch, he got up and excused himself, saying he had his partner called his 'wife' and their kids he needed to get home to. Before he did that he informed me, "It's with the understanding I'm going home to my wife and kids and get some sleep, but you're to keep me posted on how Hutch is doing and it doesn't matter what time of the night or day it is!"

Huggy then reached me on the courtesy phone and told me the same thing about keeping him posted on Hutch, and he didn't care what time of the night or day it was.

Adding, "Before I hang up I need to tell you there are no hard feelings about how you yelled at me earlier in the waiting room. It's totally understandable! Hang in there, bro!"

A bit later, I was allowed to go into the Blintz's room he'd been moved to.

###

**Hutch POV**

Not realizing I'd been moved out of the ER and into a room in the burn unit I was dreaming that a man named Stone and some buddies of his had captured Starsky and me. Was holding us hostage inside of a damp and shadowy, and roach and other creepy crawly bug infested storage cellar until Stone's brother Hedge, and we'd arrested for heavily stalking his ex-girlfriend, was released from jail.

My hands were tied, and if mine were, Starsky's had to be too.

Poor Starsk…

I couldn't even keep him out of a bad dream. Then I realized something wasn't right. My hands weren't tied behind my back or in front of me. They weren't tied in a way they'd ever been before!

No longer dreaming, and fully awake, I saw that my (still fully bandaged with white gauze hands) were being held captive in the air on two poles.

My hands were killing me and if you've ever burned your hand on a hot iron... imagine the dial set on its highest setting. Then add another setting labeled 'Unbearable.'

Wait. I'm not done yet. Then add another one labeled 'Indescribable' and you 'might' have some idea how badly I was hurting.

I was terrified! And so much for morphine being the hospital's number one pain killer when it wasn't doing me a bit of good.- And then noticing I was in a new room and Starsky right there beside me was real and wasn't in any way a figment of my imagination, he could get me the drug I needed.

He 'had' to!

He just 'had' to! Although what drug I was going to ask him to get me would be like asking him to give me the entire universe and more!

Still, I was in this strange place and with a lost count of how many strangers. There were all these odd noises that didn't sound like what a hospital should.

On top of that, one strand of burned hair is enough to make a stomach churn. Several strands and combined with burned flesh is something awful! Knowing it was my burned hair and flesh that was making the repulsive stench, "Get me some heroin! Please, Starsk!" Totally forgetting that the pain from withdrawal from it was extremely awful.

Entirely remembering how an injection of the heroin had me flying higher than a kite in nothing flat, along with all the veins in my body singing the sweetest song I'd ever heard!

Starsky didn't even flinch a muscle, but so calmly yet so stubbornly told me, "Not even if hell froze over was he going to go get me some heroin…horse…junk…didn't matter what other names it was called, he still wasn't going to go get me any of it."

But didn't he realize I had more than my legs, hands, stomach, back, arms and face burned? What about my ears? Forget about my ears. My butt. Yes, 'my' butt. Oh, and shall we never forget that part of my genitals hadn't escaped being scathed.

"Staarsk..."

My pain-filled cornflower blue eyes looked at him as I asked, "If I couldn't have any of that drug, could I please have some more morphine?"

With a lot of compassion in his crystal blue eyes, he pointed at the I.V. in my right arm. Said, "I'm so sorry! Really, I am! But it's too early for a nurse to give you some more."

"Oh, Starsk. What did I ever do to deserve being burned?"

Not only my bandaged hands and still being held captive on the poles, but also the non-gauzed rest of me didn't feel like it could be touched without hurting. He found a place by only scanning his eyes across the front of my body. It was my throat, and he firmly but gently massaged it, and it felt like a blissful soothing balm to my whole body, and I sighed deeply in great appreciation for his therapeutic administrations.

When I couldn't help but cry because I was hurting and seemingly everywhere again, he stopped massaging.

Suffering, I didn't want to talk anymore.

Or to look at him.

Turning my head away from him I didn't move anymore. I just laid still - The night dragged on, the pain and anguish only increasing, and with a lack of sleep for not only me but also him.

And during the long night, neither the doctors nor the nurses had forgotten I was a patient. While they were busy checking me over Starsky and I tried our hardest to pretend they weren't there, but it was totally useless! Especially when they started talking about surgery and oh! Just to go somewhere and without a care and stand on top of a beautiful snow-capped mountain!


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

The sun had just managed to pop over the horizon and to be done: Some skin grafting onto my hands. My face - though it was damaged - waited before it had any work done on it, but if I was going to have any hands left, surgery on them couldn't wait! Right before surgery started, I was completely knocked out with an anesthesia.

I wish I could show you some photographs that had been taken of my hands before they were grafted. The skin around my thumbnail was black with the rest of the upper thumb having white skin. As for the bottom of my thumb- all of it was this vivid red.

As for the palm, the center had about two American quarters set side by side of white skin. That skin and just like the white skin on my thumb was so damaged, it was barely attached to my hand.

As for the rest of my hand and my other hand as well, right before I was knocked out with the anesthesia that's when the doctor informed me, "My hands were the worst burned he'd seen in a long time."

During surgery on them the skin, and no matter the color of it, was removed so the grafted skin could be applied. To start the skin grafting there were areas of my body that hadn't been burned that a thin layer of skin was shaved off with something called a dermatome. These unburned areas are called donor sites, and in my case, my upper back and lower abdomen had the thin layer of skin shaved off them.

This thin skin was then stapled to my hands to hold it securely in place. I had 150 plus staples in each hand! Nice... Huh?

While I was in the surgery recovery room and Starsky and I were staring at the staples, shocked that there were so many of them, the doctor told us he was completely confident the grafts were going to take 100 percent. "That's great!" Starsk and I readily agreed!

Though, with good news often comes the bad news. The bad news? I soon found out that the shaved donor sites were being just as painful as the 2nd-degree burns on my body were!

By the way, though I don't think there is anything thrilling about my car accident and catching on fire, such was deemed thrilling enough to make all the local television news and the newspapers and the radio stations.

Then the donor sites were covered in a protective sheet. The sheet called Scarlet Red. This is a bandage that is wet, red, sticky and viscous. The gooey bandage on each donor site was needed to help them heal faster. These red dressings had to stay on eight days, save one, along with the staples before they could be removed. Every night the donor sites were subjected to a heat lamp to dry up the Scarlet Red, otherwise, it would've been harder for the nurses to remove it without injuring the skin.

###

Back to right before I was wheeled into surgery to have the skin on my hands removed, the unburned skin on my upper back and lower abdomen shaved off with the dermatome, and then that skin grafted and stapled onto my hands… Starsky inquired, "You want me to walk beside that surgery gurney you're laying on to the doors of the operating room?"

But try as he might to keep his stomach from rumbling and growling and gurgling he couldn't. So he didn't become ill, he needed some food in his stomach.

"I love you but really I'll be fine! Go find yourself some burritos with onions or something!"

After thinking it over some he disappeared to the hospital's cafeteria.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

In the surgery recovery room, Starsky concernedly asked, "How you doin' Blintz?"

"Feel still drugged and also super thirsty from the anesthesia." Then I expressed to him that I really needed a big and tall glass of ice water!

But you know how it is in the hospital having come right out of surgery. No water but if you're lucky, ice chips. Starsk got permission from the doctor to spoon feed me some, they really weren't doing much good to quench my desert thirst, but it was better than nothing. That was unless the melted ice chips in my stomach along with the sour acid decided to pull a rebellion.

They did!

And proving to Starsky that I really did love him, I threw up on Nurse Fadaree instead!

But what did she expect when all she'd brought to my mouth to puke in was a plastic and infant-sized, bean-shaped tub?

####

Having been moved back to my room in the burn unit and in bed, I was yet again in excruciating pain and groaning and shrieking and hissing. Even with my room's thick wood door closed all the way so I couldn't hear them, I was 100 percent certain some other patients in the burn unit were doing the same thing as I was. I became upset about it. So much so, that my heart was beating too fast and the heart monitor showing that it was.

"Mr. Hutchinson you need to calm down or else you're going to give yourself a heart attack," a nurse chastised me while keeping her voice gentle. But she meant serious business about what she'd just said.

"Trying to," I informed her and Starsky standing worriedly beside me. "Sorry, but now I hear this buzzing in my ears like someone's cutting a tree with a chain-saw. Is that normal?" I asked the nurse.

"No one's mentioned it happening before, but most likely the noise you're hearing still has something to do with the amount of stress your body is undergoing from being burned. I'll go get you a sedative.

Didn't even feel the prick of the needle when she gave me the injection of the drug, and combined with what was left of the anesthesia in my body from the work I'd had done on my hands, along with more morphine injected into a port in my IV line, can't say I remember much more about the rest of my first day in the burn unit.

Although, I remember a whole, whole, whole lot more of my following days and nights and during my lengthy stay in the hospital.

Like yesterday this petite lady with auburn hair enthused, "Hi! I'm your dietitian Breezy!" And it didn't surprise me at all her name was that with the way she'd breezed into my hospital room with my breakfast tray.

"Okay 'Hutch'….We've been told we can call you that!- Got some things here with protein in 'em because burn patients need a lot of it while healing because the body will lose protein through the burn wounds and muscles will break down trying to produce extra energy for the healing process. The additional protein helps rebuild lost muscle.

"Also have you some carbohydrates as they make up the bulk of a burn patient's nutrition. The body will turn the carbs into glucose for energy. In fact, they can't use any other source. By providing this energy for healing, carbs allow the protein eaten to rebuild muscle, rather than be used for fuel.

"Also have some things here for you with fat to provide essential fatty acids and extra calories. Though, normally no more than 30 percent of the calories will come from fat as too much can weaken your immune system. Got some vitamin and mineral tablets here you need to take too."

She set the tray down on my bed table. "What's in this cup with a lid on it and what's in that one and this one and that one? And what's that mystery meat right there?" I questioned her.

"H.S.Y.M. and she'll tell you!" Starsky chimed in.

"H.S.Y.M. means Hutch shut your mouth. Am I right?" the dietitian asked.

"Yer right schweetheart!" Starsky said waggling his eyebrows.

For a change, a female didn't giggle like a schoolgirl at that, and she rolled her eyes, taking the sting out if though by smiling at him.

She then winked at me and said, "In this cup is a fruit smoothie. In this one juice and with eight different kinds of vegetables in it. That's why it's called V-8 juice! But you already knew that!" She then hee-hee'd at that.

"And in this cup with a lid on it is white cow's milk and in that one a vanilla protein shake. This mystery meat as you called it is just a sausage patty."

Also saw on my meal tray a bowl of cottage cheese, a plate with a mound of whole-grain brown rice, two poached eggs, and 4 half slices of wheat toast with butter or margarine on them. "Wow! This is a lot of stuff you want me to eat and drink. Do I have to eat and drink all of this and take all those vitamin and mineral tablets too!?" I inquired.

"Did you know you sounded just like a little kid there? You have to if you want to start getting well! See you later sugar plum!" And she breezed out of my room.

####

With my hands useless to do much of anything Starsky had to feed me. Hold whatever cup he had in his hand at the time to my still swollen lips, while I drank out of the plastic straw that was inserted through the slot in the lid.

I'd ate all of the eggs, rice, cottage cheese and drank all the V-8 juice and milk, then informed Starsky, "Yuck! This protein shake no longer tastes like vanilla! Tastes like disgusting chalk you write on a chalkboard with! Besides that, I'm stuffed to the max! You drink the rest of it and eat the rest of my sausage and toast and here, take these vitamin and mineral tablets too! I don't want em!"

"You heard the lady 'sugar plum'! You've got to eat and drink everything and take all those tablets too if you want to start getting well! She'll be wanting you to eat and drink and take all of what's on your meal tray for your following breakfasts, and lunches, and dinners too, and there's nothing like the present to start doing that.

"Sigh. Okay. Okay. Alright! Starsky! But if I'm going to finish the rest of this breakfast and take those tablets too, I need to belch some to make room in my stomach. Some of them might smell raunchier than sewer gas. If they do, I'm warning you that you can't run off to somewhere else so you don't have to smell them with me!"

About two hours later another lady showed up and announcing she was Lorna, my physical therapist for the day.

"With your curly-headed brunet friend here's assistance we are going to help you walk the burn unit's hallways. The walking is entirely mandatory to keep you from getting pneumonia."

They helped me out of the hospital bed and to stand up, I was still so weak and so extremely sore, and my face continued to be blown up like a big red balloon, Starsky wrapped his left hand firmly around my right upper arm. Lorna doing the same to my left one.

I was all hunched over from walking when I breathily exclaimed, "I can't handle doing this anymore!"

But, and at the same time, they said I had to keep on walking!

I still refused to do so. Was hurting much too badly!

"Fine! I'll pick you up, put you back in bed, and let you die from pneumonia includin' lettin' you rot there in bed for all I care!" Starsky severely snapped at me, and with this cold and hard steel look in those blue eyes of his.

His heated words and that look in his eyes a way of using a tough-love tactic on me and to get me to do something I didn't want to, though I was still hunched over and in severe pain, with their assistance I walked until I was entirely bathed in sweat, shaking with sheer exhaustion, and looking like I was going to pass out at any moment.

The days following and with Starsky's and whoever was my physical therapist for the day assistance, I had to walk the hallways to keep from getting pneumonia and walk I did!


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

Another thing that greatly sticks out in my memory is this surgical procedure called debridement and done on my many burn wounds.

I'd been wheel chaired into another room to have it done and hefted up on a table with a sheet of strong tissue paper spread over it…

Even with coming through the audio cassette player's stereo speakers the classical music piece "Pachelbel's Canon in D" and hearing in the background of the Pachelbel music track some ocean waves gently lapping at what had to be a nicely warm and sunny and sandy beach shore-

I still was so utterly overwrought with the pain and suffering of my burn wounds being debrided and was kicking my legs at, and swinging my arms at, and using my teeth to bite at those people doing the debridement!

I was like a totally insane wild man!

And it forced them to stop doing the debridement.

"Hutch dear. We know the debridement is terribly painful for you, but it must continue to be done. But first I'm going to wrap a wet and cool towel around your neck and let you take a five-minute breather. Okay?" One of the women there said.

I shook my head up and down in agreement to that.

####

"Sorry. Times up Hun and we need you to do no more kicking or swinging or biting at us. Understand?"

"Um hum," I said, through clenched teeth. Not looking forward to more debridement at all.

Then as they carried on doing the debridement, I screamed so loudly and so long that all the paint on the walls and on the ceiling should've fallen off!

####

Then there was when, "Turn, churn, yearn, earn! Come on Starsk! Join in the fun of saying words that rhyme with burn!" I then was laughing hysterically and bawling my eyes out, as there truly was no fun at all about being burned.

Not that in the burn unit there hadn't been some great times.

Although I'm no longer a little boy and haven't been for some time now, Mom sometimes still likes to call me, "Her Little Kenny" and that's okay with me when she does it…

She and Dad had flown from Duluth, Minnesota and where they still live, to Bay City, California to come to see me in the hospital.

Not having forgotten that Starsky had told them to don't bring me any real flowers as they breed microorganisms and burn patients are highly susceptible to infection! Their visit started off on the rocky side.

Nurse Bancroft and seeing the bouquet of flowers on my bedside table thought they were real and shouted angrily at my parents for bringing the bouquet, throwing it into a plastic trash bag. Just as she was about to tie the top of the bag in a tight knot and deposit the bag somewhere out of the burn unit, Dad told her the flowers were artificial.

"Don't smell like it!" Bancroft anyhow huffed out. Next going ahead and rubbing the flowers between her fingertips and declaring they were just made out of silky nylon that had been dyed different colors and lightly misted with flower-scented perfume!

She smiled and put the bouquet back on my bedside table and said, "Have a pleasant visit!" and left for the nurse's station.

After that, my parents and I had a great conversation about a variety of topics. Even though some were about U.S. politics and religion we had some different views on and though like they I was raised as a Lutheran, we didn't get into any heated arguments over it.

Then Starsky showed up along with Sweet Alice.

She would always have this sweet Southern drawl, with Starsky's and my help she thankfully had stopped being a prostitute. After brushing up on her office skills she got a job and all by herself as a highly paid secretary at a financial institution that facilitates the buying and selling of financial securities between a buyer and a seller.

Also in tow with them… Kiko, Pete/Molly, and their mom. Huggy, Dobey, Edith, and Cal-Eleven-year-old Rosie left at home with a babysitter. The hospital having only a few exceptions they let those under 15 years of age visit a patient and no matter what part of the hospital they are in.

Still, everyone in my room had a wonderful time singing along with Starsky to the songs he was playing on my guitar.

Knowing that I never will be able to play a guitar again with how badly my hands are burned (knowing he never will be able to play it as well as I could before they were!)

It didn't matter because all of us there in my room continued to have a grand time!

Next played were some very enjoyable question-and-answer trivia games when a nurse, with her red hair up in a bun, came in.

"I'm sorry, but visiting hours are over, and my head supervisor informed me that there are no exceptions about anyone staying overnight with Hutch tonight." The nurse said.

"Good night everyone!" I exclaimed and with a cheerful smile on my face.

"Good night Hutch!" And they all left.

But right before then Edith had reached inside of a paper bag and took out a big greeting's card.

"Rosie made this for you."

With a dark blue Sharpie ink pen, and in large letters, she had written on the cover of the card: I LOVE YOU UNCLE HUTCH!

(Hey, we aren't blood relatives but I'm still the kid's uncle and I love her too!)

For the moment, with my hands not feeling so arthritic, I opened the card Rosie had made for me. Rosie had used colored crayons to draw a picture of her and me together eating some delicious looking frosted cupcakes.

Edith placed the card on my lap, "Rosie said to don't forget to tell you when she gets old enough that she's going to marry you!" -"If you behave yourself Hutch, I just might let her!"

"You're not just mightin' to let her marry him if I get around to marryin' first!" Sweet Alice chimed in!

And we all laughed!


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

Unfortunately, though, the extremely bad times greatly outnumbered the grand ones.

Like how the round clock on the wall was a regular size. But seemed so ominously huge and foreboding when that clock said it was time for my burn wounds to feel like rough sandpaper was being rubbed back and forth across them.

Though I'm a six-foot-one grown man, I had no control over how much I whimpered, groaned, cried and squealed.

Like how to help my body heal I was supposed to be getting at least six hours of uninterrupted sleep at night, but that clock said that every two hours it was time for me to have a severe nightmare. Waking me up so my eyes were so wide open they should be popping out of my head.

And feeling like I was being suffocated to death, I wrapped my hands around my throat and gasped for air.

Or how that clock said it was time for me to have an anxiety attack where I felt like I was going to catch on fire all over again, and even when I wasn't around any source that could realistically burn me. Sometimes those attacks so bad I violently threw things in my room at a wall or on the floor (including whatever meal tray I was supposed to be eating and to also help my body heal) to try to get rid of the attacks. Starsky or anyone else in the room trying to get me to settle down enough so a nurse could give me a shot of a sedative.

Oh. And then there was the time I was running a high fever and the doctors couldn't figure out the reason why, or how come the antipyretic they were giving me wasn't working.

I was seeing huge pink and also blue elephants stomping and charging their way across a clearing in the African jungle. Starsk and I couldn't get out of their way except for falling face down and into the wet mud and cover the back of our heads with our arms. Then feel some of those elephants gratefully not kill us when they ran over us, though those elephants had anyway broken a lot of the bones in our bodies.

After that was seeing psychedelic circles and swirling their way back and forth across my room. It was nauseating and otherwise sickening watching them, but also fascinatingly captivating. Though I felt like tons times like a fool and like I was tripping out on LSD, what with the way I was oohing and aahing at those circles.

#####

Then several more weeks spent in the hospital

I was finally released to go live in the split-level house Starsky had to get us so he could continue to take care of me. Some of our friends are sometimes able to take over and give the guy a break.

Then one day someone told me that there's a saying that time heals all wounds.

Can't say I agree that it heals 'all' wounds, but as life continued to march on….

Starsky was able to go back to work and though he had to get a new partner, on the days when I'm not being vain about how I look like, I sometimes go with him to the squad room. Sometimes to do some brainstorming with them to try to solve whatever case they're currently working on.

Sometimes when I'm not being vain about what I look like and if the weather's good, I go out of our shared house with him and sit on our front porch with some of our neighbors and enjoy the fresh air.

And during the times I'm not being vain about what I look like and weather also providing, sometimes I go for a run outdoors like I used to.

###

Back to those many horrible burn scars I have that I'm 100 percent certain never will disappear-

During the times I'm being vain about how I look like that I don't want to be seen out in public, the time eventually came that I got to reminding myself that beauty is only skin deep and that a person's physical appearance is truly superficial.

It's what's on the inside that counts, just as long as you show it to other people.

There are multiple ways to do that with just a few examples-

By not childishly refusing to talk to someone when you're angry with them.

By not taking credit for the work they have done.

By not leaving messes in public restrooms.

By not cutting in line at an amusement park.

Finis

End note: For more information on this topic you can do a Google web search for: Burn Survivor Resources- American Burn Association.


End file.
